te_, and there is much in his work that is new. I
don't admire his style. The abuse of the historic present is bad
enough, but what can be said in favour of the historic future with
which we meet at every step? It sets my teeth on edge."

But he grew physically weaker, and seven days later he passed into an
unconscious state, dying peacefully at noon on August 17th, 1916. He was
saved, as he had wished to be, from all consciousness of decrepitude.

THE LYRICAL POETRY OF THOMAS HARDY

When, about Christmas time in 1898, Mr. Hardy's admirers, who were
expecting from him a new novel, received instead a thick volume of
verse, there was mingled with their sympathy and respect a little
disappointment and a great failure in apprehension. Those who were not
rude enough to suggest that a cobbler should stick to his last, reminded
one another that many novelists had sought relaxation by trifling with
the Muses. Thackeray had published _Ballads_, and George Eliot had
expatiated in a _Legend of Jubal_. No one thought the worse of
_Coningsby_ because its author had produced a _Revolutionary Epic_. It
took some time for even intelligent criticism to see that the new
_Wessex Poems_ did not fall into this accidental category, and still,
after twenty years, there survives a tendency to take the verse of Mr.
Hardy, abundant and solid as it has become, as a mere subsidiary and
ornamental appendage to his novels. It is still necessary to insist on
the complete independence of his career as a poet, and to point out that
if he had never published a page of prose he would deserve to rank high
among the writers of his country on the score of the eight volumes of
his verse. It is as a lyrical poet, and solely as a lyrical poet, that I
propose to speak of him to-day.

It has been thought extraordinary that Cowper was over fifty when he
published his first secular verses, but Mr. Hardy was approaching his
sixtieth year when he sent _Wessex Poems_ to the press. Such
self-restraint--"none hath by more studious ways endeavoured, and with
more unwearied spirit none shall"--has always fascinated the genuine
artist, but few have practised it with so much tenacity. When the work
of Mr. Hardy is completed, nothing, it is probable, will more strike
posterity than its unity, its consistency. He has given proof, as scarce
any other modern writer has done, of tireless constancy of resolve. His
novels formed an unbroken series from t